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Tag: kik messenger

We knew this day would come eventually when we learned more about why Kik was pulled from App World. RIM has filed a patent lawsuit against Kik, and while we don’t know the exact patents RIM is claiming Kik has infringed on, a good guess is that it has to do with a RIM patent on BBM’s sent, delivered, read, and typing indicators. Considering the CEO of Kik, Ted Livingston, used to work at RIM, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think he had insider knowledge about the patent details.

Here is a thought: maybe RIM wouldn’t have sued Kik if they didn’t use this patent on other devices. The fact that the company essentially brought BBM to other platforms in such a way is bad for RIM’s business. Carriers will often say that BBM is the number 1 customer retention tool for BlackBerry, and if this opens up to other platforms they lose a bit of competitive advantage.

Multi-platform messenger apps are a hit these days as proven by the popularity of Kik. Pinch, a popular messenger app for iPhone, is coming to BlackBerry later this month. Currently, the app is in private beta but the company let us know that they’ll be launching very soon. Benefits of Pinch include:

Makes it easy to stay connected and interact with your contacts, without having to switch between applications. With Pinch you can send messages and animated emoticons, explore cities through games and competitions, and find people with an interactive pin-map powered by Google.

You can add friends directly from your phone contacts, Facebook, or Twitter and group them by category. Your friends, colleagues, and family can each be kept in their own easy- to-access group.

Never spend money on SMS again. Pinch uses your existing data plan to find and interact with friends from all around the world, without using your phone’s SMS function.

Pinch’s unique leaderboard adds games and friendly competition for users. Every time you use Pinch to send messages and check locations, accumulate points to win prizes, such as the iPad and other fun giveaways.

Kik Messenger, a free cross-platform mobile instant messaging service, has reached 450,000 users and the growth rate has doubled. Usage has peaked yesterday at 1 million messages an hour. This is a huge amount of growth considering the app had only 30,000 users a week ago. If you’re trying to download Kik, the company wants you to know that they’ve suspended downloads temporarily so they can upgrade servers.